A video showing schoolchildren being served midday meals (MDM) on paper sheets at the Middle School in Madhya Pradesh’s Hullpur village, which emerged earlier this week, has led to red faces, administrative action, and a sharp attack from Congress’s Rahul Gandhi.
After taking cognisance of the incident, the Block Education Officer of Vijaypur inspected the school on November 6 and submitted a report detailing the circumstances that led to the lapse. The report stated that both the Primary and Middle Schools in Hullpur operate on the same campus, and the responsibility for preparing and serving midday meals lies with the Jai Santoshi Maa Self Help Group (SHG).
The SHG employs five cooks – three for cooking and two for cleaning utensils. On the day of the incident, both cleaners were absent, resulting in unwashed utensils. In their absence, the school staff reportedly resorted to serving food on sheets of paper, a video of which went viral on November 4.
On November 6, the MDM monitoring committee passed a resolution recommending the cancellation of the Jai Santoshi Maa SHG’s contract. The contract was formally terminated the next day.
The responsibility for preparing and serving the midday meal has since been transferred to the School Management Committee (SMC). The headmaster of the Primary and Middle School, Hullpur, was suspended for failing to ensure proper implementation of the scheme, and show cause notices were issued to the Cluster Academic Coordinator and Block Resource Centre Coordinator for negligence in monitoring.
Posting the video on his X handle, Gandhi wrote, “I’m heading to Madhya Pradesh today. Ever since I saw news that children there are being served mid-day meals on newspapers, my heart is broken.”
“These are the same innocent children on whose dreams the future of the country rests, and they aren’t even getting a plate of dignity. More than 20 years of the BJP government, and they’ve stolen even the children’s plate – their ‘development’ is just an illusion, the real secret to them coming to power is ‘the arrangement (vyavastha)’,” he wrote. “Such a Chief Minister and Prime Minister should feel ashamed for keeping the future of the country’s children, India’s future, in this pitiable state.”
Following the incident, a district-level committee has also been constituted to conduct a detailed inquiry and ensure that such lapses are not repeated.
In light of the incident, the education department has moved to strengthen its monitoring mechanism. Cluster Academic Coordinators have been instructed to conduct monthly inspections of the midday meal programme with greater rigour, and detailed guidelines have been reissued.
To improve transparency and accountability, all district and block-level officers will now be required to inspect at least five schools randomly each month.
A Google Form-based monitoring system has been introduced to record inspection findings in real-time. Sub-Divisional Magistrates will review these reports weekly at the block level, while the Chief Executive Officer of the Zila Panchayat will oversee reviews at the district level.
Officials said these steps are intended to prevent such incidents in the future and reinforce the commitment to ensuring that every child receives a safe, hygienic, and nutritious midday meal.
